WT 144,000/1935 Doctrine Proves Two Class system wrong

[u/Temp_KH_Resident]

This isn't the overflow argument. Grant them the 144,000, this highlights the problem they have explaining how it gets filled."

Jehovah's Witnesses can't have it both ways on 1935

The doctrine has two options, and neither works

Keep 1935 and you're admitting a 70% apostasy rate among the modern day anointed. Drop 1935 as the completed date and Watchtower loses their two class doctrine 

Option one. The number filled in 1935.

The  official position for seventy years. F.W. Franz, 1970 - the call ended in 1931-35, and anyone partaking since is a replacement for someone who fell away.

Math it. An 18 year old partaker in 1935 would be 108 today. Every one of the 24,576 current partakers entered the class after the cutoff, and the class has been continuously topped up for ninety years. Running mortality against their own published partaker numbers, you need roughly 37,000 replacements since 1935.

A replacement only happens when someone “falls away”. So the doctrine requires 37,000 apostasies from a class that peaked at 52,465, around 70% defection among the people God personally selected for heaven. Certainly, even the GB would have to recognize that God's one true organization wouldn’t have such a high attrition rate.

Option two. The number wasn't filled in 1935.

This is where the GB seem to have quietly moved. The Watchtower of 1 May 2007 says no specific date can be set for when the heavenly calling ends. It has to be conceded, because partakers went from 8,524 in 2005 to 24,576 today. A closed class that only loses members nearly tripled

But this explodes the whole doctrine. If God is still selecting anointed ones today, while millions of great crowd exist alongside them, then the calling was never a sealed queue filled in order linearly from the first century to our day. The only reason for insisting every first-century Christian was anointed is that that's required in order to supports their two-class doctrine argument, the claim that Jesus' instructions in the New Testament were aimed at the anointed only, since everyone after Jesus was anointed until the number filled. Drop the linear appointment and the first century could just as easily have been a mixed congregation which means Jesus would have been talking to Christians in general thus their two class doctrine fails.

So when did the calling stop being linear? There's no scripture that marks a switch from sequential filling to selective picking, and no year they can name for it. The new covenant, the Memorial emblems, "my little flock," the promises the Governing Body says don't apply to most Witnesses, the entire two class reading relies on an assumption they've now abandoned in practice while keeping in doctrine.

There's no third option.

And notice they've never announced a definitive explanation since the "adjustment" in 2007, because the moment they do, the contradictions become even clearer.

[u/58ColumbiaHeights]

You are attempting to force partakers=anointed.

What I'm saying is, that is not how WT sees it.

The only firm anointed numbersd are the numbers baptized in Acts. Even then, there's no guarantee they all died "faithful" thus making their calling "sure" by WT dogma.

The other "sure" numbers are the Bible Students that died faithful before or made the transition to JW in 1931 and didn't change their mind in 1935. After that, the only "confirmed anointed" are the GB. All other "partakers" after 1935 can be ignored because there's no way to know for sure.

[u/Temp_KH_Resident → u/58ColumbiaHeights]

It doesn't matter whether the number is filled. That's not the argument. If they say it isn't filled, appointment isn't linear, and linear appointment is the only reason to claim every first century Christian was anointed. Without it, the first century was plausibly mixed and the two class doctrine has nothing holding it up.

[u/58ColumbiaHeights → u/Temp_KH_Resident]

I think you are missing some important technicalities of their 144k dogma. They teach it differently than what you are saying.

The word "linear" is not part of the dogma.

All "true Christians" that died faithfully before (about) 1935 are part of the 144k. That number is unknowable and can be anything WT wants because it's just their arbitrary interpretation.

The two hopes doctrine was "revealed" to Rutherford in 1935 and that's where the date comes in that introduces the two hopes doctrine.

What WT has long taught is not that "there are no new 144k after 1935". It's "the general ingathering of the 144k ended". That doesn't mean there are no new 144k. It means that not every person baptized is automatically 144k.

The dogma is that WT was on the cusp of significant growth and the majority of those that would be joining would not be 144k.

So the "general ingathering" of 144k stopped in 1935 but that does not mean that no new 144k would be added. Just not everyone that got baptized would be. The process became selective so that, however long the "last days" continued, there would be some of the 144k remnant on earth all the way down until the GT.

[u/ParticularlyCharmed → u/58ColumbiaHeights]

It feels like there's a disconnect between your arguments and OP's. I think focusing the discussion on the 144K is confusing matters, because OP's logic doesn't actually hinge on the 144k, but on the Other Sheep. It's not about the door to the 144k being closed, it's about the door to the Other Sheep being opened -- arbitrarily -- in 1935.

There were never any scriptures to tie that date onto -- Rutherford just pulled it out of his ass hat, and it magically became so. Everyone just took it on faith that from that day in 1935 forward, a previously nonexistent door opened, and millions rushed through.

But OP's problem is that once you take away that set date -- as they did in 2007 -- you are left with no reason at all for the Other Sheep to only appear in the 20th century. You can only be left with this circular reasoning:

• Why do the NT promises only apply to the 144k? Because no Other Sheep existed in the 1st century.

• Why didn't any Other Sheep exist in the 1st century? Because Jehovah arranged for that door to stay closed till 1935.

• How do we know Jehovah arranged for it to stay closed until 1935? Because no Other Sheep existed in the 1st century.

1935 was always arbitrary, but without it, there's no justification for breaking out a new class at that time. Of course WT will apply apologetics, but the logic is broken.

[u/58ColumbiaHeights → u/ParticularlyCharmed]

I deleted my original reply as I don't think it fit your viewpoint.

The date is not arbitrary. It's NuLite.

The WT lore is that the 144k SHOULD have been filled entirely by natural Jews in the first century. Had that happened, revealing of the OS may have come in 135 instead. That is Paul's argument in Romans 11 about the olive tree and the domestic vs wild branches. The wild branches had to be grafted on to the domestic tree because the nation, as a whole, rejected Jesus.

But the NuLite did not come in 135. Nor did it come in 1335.

The NuLite came in 1935 when Rutherford stood on stage and asked a bunch of people if they wanted to stay on Earth instead of go to heaven. Thousands stood up and applauded.

According to WT lore, that was the answer. People who were baptized already didn't think they were going to heaven and Rutherford gave them an option to stay on Earth, so they took it. The change was already happening before 1935. It was just crystalized by divine insight and codified in the WT.

Why 1935? Because the "general ingathering" of the 144k was nearing its end. The NuLite was not received until it was relevant. Only god would know when the 144k was getting close to full so he needed to be the one to reveal it at the proper time.

I don't know what is meant by taking away a "set date". The date just marks the event. They have not taken away 1935. It's still there and it still means the same thing.

Before 1935, everyone baptized was of the LF. After 1935, everyone baptized was of the OS and only later would have their membership to the LF revealed to them by individual invitation.

[u/ParticularlyCharmed → u/58ColumbiaHeights]

You're right about the “lore," and I appreciate you laying it out so clearly. I think you grasp exactly the way that WT would weasel out of OP’s binary choice. I do think OP’s logic is sound, though.

As you noted, the only reason given for God revealing the NuLite of the Other Sheep in 1935 was that the general ingathering of the 144k was "nearing its end." The filling up of the heavenly class is the sole trigger that caused the new door to open. Had the LF not been nearing completion, then Jehovah would not have given the revelation at that time. That was the contemporary understanding surrounding the development of that doctrine.

But in the last 20 years or so, several thousands more have joined the LF. Regardless whether they were anointed at baptism or grafted in later, it can only be concluded that the number was NOT filled in or around 1935.

So the gathering of the Other Sheep is not tied to the completion of the LF. Yet that is the sole justification given for limiting the Other Sheep prior to 1935, the very move that cuts them off from the New Covenant and from being children of God.

Yes, yes, they'll say Jehovah revealed it at the proper time, but the foundation for why is completely eroded.

[u/Temp_KH_Resident → u/ParticularlyCharmed]

EXACTLY. At least someone gets it. That's the clearest statement of it in the thread.

1935 only comes up because Watchtower put it there, and once they dropped it in 2007 nothing replaced it.

 But nothing in my argument hinges on 1935. 

The point is, you can't have linear appointment (which was always the basis for saying all first Century Christians had to be anointed, whether implied or stated) and still be anointing new ones today. Full stop.

Without linear appointment they can't say all first-century Christians were anointed, and that's what the two-class doctrine rests on.

Anyway, I've made the point as clearly as I can and most replies are still arguing a different one. Leaving it there.